WEBVTT - CZM Rewind: Part Two: Crisis Hotlines: Of Course Queers Invented Them 0:00:01.760 --> 0:00:07.040 Cool Zone Media. Hello and welcome to another part of 0:00:07.160 --> 0:00:11.240 the same week as another episode that is a rewind 0:00:11.320 --> 0:00:16.439 episode about hotlines and why they're actually really amazing and 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:20.800 why people had to fight to make them happen, and 0:00:21.000 --> 0:00:25.239 I hope you enjoy it. Hello and welcome to Cool 0:00:25.239 --> 0:00:28.720 People Who Did Cool Stuff, your weekly reminder that billions 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:32.680 of us make the world better every day by trying 0:00:33.120 --> 0:00:36.200 really fucking hard to make the world better in ways 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:38.360 big and small. By I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy. This 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:39.880 is a show about cool people who did cool stuff 0:00:39.880 --> 0:00:43.560 in history, and we always talk about these like big actions, 0:00:43.600 --> 0:00:46.239 you know, this huge movement that had a revolution, or 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:49.159 this individual who accomplished all of these things. You know, 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:53.680 we talked about like the man who started suicide crisis hotlines, right, 0:00:54.040 --> 0:00:57.600 but like there's so many, so many, so many people 0:00:57.600 --> 0:01:00.280 more involved in that project. But even more than that, 0:01:00.320 --> 0:01:03.200 there's so many more people involved in the basic project 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:06.760 of hearing your friends talk about how they're feeling without 0:01:06.760 --> 0:01:09.319 prejudice and without calling the cops on them. You know, 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:11.280 Like that is a thing that we can give to 0:01:11.360 --> 0:01:15.679 each other every single day and happens every single day 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:18.080 all around the world. Is that we help each other 0:01:18.560 --> 0:01:21.280 because one of the things that I've learned by researching 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:25.080 history is that, look, I know that this sounds bad, 0:01:25.800 --> 0:01:28.080 but I mean in a positive way. There's no bottom 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:31.560 to the amount of suffering that could be happening right now, 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:34.240 right like you just you read about times in history 0:01:34.240 --> 0:01:36.319 where like things happened and that were really bad, and 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:38.160 then you read about other times in history or things 0:01:38.160 --> 0:01:40.280 happened they were even worse, and you're like, there's just like, 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:44.200 actually no bottom, there is no floor, and so it 0:01:44.200 --> 0:01:46.479 feels like we're not winning, when in fact we are. 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:49.440 It feels like we're not winning because we haven't achieved 0:01:49.560 --> 0:01:55.920 our whatever your utopian dream is, right, but we instead 0:01:56.560 --> 0:01:59.120 stopped an infinite amount of suffering. Even though we haven't 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:02.560 stopped all the suffering, we have to keep working. We'll 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:08.280 never fully win, right, But instead we prove that we 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:12.280 can have worthwhile and meaningful lives by the big and 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:16.200 small ways that we work to help each other. That's 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:19.280 my grand standing. Hopefully you're up for some grand standing, 0:02:19.280 --> 0:02:24.560 because this is an episode about suicide prevention, and specifically 0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:28.440 the crisis hotlines that are staffed by so many people 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:30.840 who do so much work to try to help people 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:35.880 every single day, and you know, so hopefully you knew 0:02:35.919 --> 0:02:38.160 that getting into it, that I was going to be 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:42.040 pretty fucking earnest and talking about some sad shit like 0:02:42.120 --> 0:02:48.240 suicide on this particular episode. Anyway, there's no guest, it's 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:52.280 just me and you, just a little private conversation between 0:02:52.320 --> 0:02:56.680 the two of us, just two of us. You're the 0:02:56.680 --> 0:02:59.560 only listener. Just kind of wild. Actually, if you think 0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:01.360 about it, should really tell your friends about the show, 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:03.000 because it's kind of weird that I only have one 0:03:03.080 --> 0:03:06.399 listener and it's you, dear listener. You think I would 0:03:06.440 --> 0:03:09.640 know your name since you're the only listener, but I don't. 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:15.840 Last time on Monday, we talked about Bernard Mays, who 0:03:15.880 --> 0:03:19.160 set up the first suicide prevention hotline in the United 0:03:19.160 --> 0:03:21.880 States in either nineteen sixty one or nineteen sixty two 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:26.320 and the sources disagree, and we talked about how it 0:03:26.480 --> 0:03:30.360 became nine to eight eight, the current crisis hotline that 0:03:30.440 --> 0:03:34.960 is available to anyone in the United States that unfortunately 0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:37.880 does call the cops. And where we left our cliffhanger 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:41.520 was that trans Lifeline, who does not do non consensual intervention, 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:46.040 had put out a report there's a lot of names 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:47.800 on this report. They put a lot of work into 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:49.280 it over the course of years. The report came out 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:51.600 in twenty twenty four. You can read it on their website. 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:54.320 I linked to it among the many sources in the 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:57.920 show notes, even more sources than usual this particular week. 0:03:59.120 --> 0:04:00.720 Actually want to talk about that for a second. I 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:02.760 swear I'm going to get into my own script and 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:05.880 end the cliffhanger you're on, But I want to talk 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:08.600 about like my own nervousness around this episode, because this 0:04:08.680 --> 0:04:10.720 is a topic I take very seriously, but I'm not 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:14.280 an expert in and the ways that we talk about 0:04:14.480 --> 0:04:16.520 this kind of stuff does matter. I read a decent 0:04:16.600 --> 0:04:19.760 number of stuff about like guidelines for journalists when talking 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:23.839 about suicide, you know, and how to try to handle 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:27.599 this kind of thing responsibly, and it's very hard. The 0:04:27.600 --> 0:04:29.280 reason I want to talk about this part of it 0:04:29.320 --> 0:04:32.440 is because I'm going to be critical of nine to 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:35.880 eight eight as an infrastructure right now, while I'm also 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:40.279 incredibly grateful for the work that it does right and 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:42.000 I'm not going to tell people not to call it 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:44.919 because a lot of the alternatives are too underfunded and 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:47.560 they're not as successful in certain ways like don't have 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:51.200 enough people to answer the phone, you know. And it's 0:04:51.279 --> 0:04:53.360 good that we try to do this thing. It's just 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:57.240 the framework it's embedded within is very dangerous and there's 0:04:57.240 --> 0:04:59.360 a lot of problems with it. And so I mean 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:02.080 this as a loving critique and it's not even necessarily 0:05:02.080 --> 0:05:04.480 my critique. A lot of it's coming from trans Lifeline, 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:06.919 who also meet it as a loving critique. And I 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:09.320 was really impressed with the language that they constantly use 0:05:09.720 --> 0:05:13.279 when they're critical of nine eight eight. They're not saying like, oh, 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:16.400 those people love cops in or boot liquors and we're 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:20.080 the best, you know. Instead they're like, hey, we got 0:05:20.080 --> 0:05:22.400 to try, we got to try to be better. We 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:24.720 got to try to get the police out of our 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:28.120 communities to keep ourselves safe, and we've got to you know, 0:05:28.800 --> 0:05:31.359 care for each other. But I don't know, I was 0:05:31.360 --> 0:05:35.160 just I was pretty impressed with how they talk about it. Anyway. 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:40.719 Trans Lifelines report, based on years of research, puts their 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:45.720 best guess that on average, cops are dispatched for three 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:49.240 point six percent of nine eight eight calls, which is 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:52.000 higher than the one point nine percent of calls that 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:56.800 lead to emergency medical services. Being called, which means you're 0:05:56.839 --> 0:05:58.960 almost twice as likely to have the cops called on 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:04.000 you as an ambulance. The same report says that callers 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:07.359 who had non voluntary services dispatched on them included reports 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:13.800 of quote, police violence, discrimination, involuntary hospitalization, forced medication, and 0:06:13.839 --> 0:06:20.200 physical and sexual assault. And at first glance, you might think, well, 0:06:20.279 --> 0:06:22.159 what sort of makes sense to call an ambulance on 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:25.760 someone who's dying, whether they ask for it or not. Right, Like, 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:28.040 if I'm god, this happened once. I was like walking 0:06:28.040 --> 0:06:29.640 down the street and like a bicyclists got hit by 0:06:29.680 --> 0:06:32.440 a car in front of me. I just called the 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:35.840 fucking ambulance. I didn't be like, hey, buddy, you want 0:06:35.880 --> 0:06:38.800 an ambulance? Yay, nay, how you feeling on that? I 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:42.080 was just like, fuck, I'm calling an ambulance. That man 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:44.520 just got hit by a car, you know, and that 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:47.400 makes sense to me. Right. I don't want to get 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:50.000 into the ethics of intervening in suicide because it's an 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:54.120 incredibly charged debate that people's personal, moral, philosophical, and theological 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:58.520 positions are deeply intertwined with. But there's obviously a reason 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:00.960 many people might want to call the ambulance if someone 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:04.960 is dying for whatever reason. But the thing is a 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:07.560 lifeline that can call the cops on you based on 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:11.960 what you say is just a fundamentally different thing than 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:15.480 a crisis line where you can be honest. Everyone I 0:07:15.600 --> 0:07:18.240 know is used to lying to doctors and therapists in 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:23.800 order to navigate the strange bureaucracy that permeates our world. Right, Like, 0:07:24.280 --> 0:07:29.360 I know people who don't go to therapy because therapists 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:31.720 are mandated reporters, and they're like, what's the point of 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:34.480 going to a therapist? I can't be honest to You 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:37.760 shouldn't have to do that when you're calling a lifeline. 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:40.600 You shouldn't have to play games around how you want 0:07:40.640 --> 0:07:43.840 to answer specific questions based on what you're hoping the 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:46.640 outcome will be. I actually think that there's a way 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:49.679 from this to understand the fundamental problem with like law 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:52.600 as a framework with which to try to build a 0:07:52.640 --> 0:07:57.840 positive society. But knowing that the police might be called 0:07:58.080 --> 0:08:00.760 means that people who call, if they choose to call 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:04.240 it all, can't be honest. It's a fucking suicide hotline, 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:06.680 and if you call, they ask have you had any 0:08:06.680 --> 0:08:09.400 suicidal thoughts? In the past few days, and if you 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:12.360 say yes, they have to run through the script to 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:15.480 figure out if you're an immediate threat, and if you are, 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:22.040 they call emergency services, usually the cops. Isn't this defeating 0:08:22.080 --> 0:08:25.160 the whole point of a hotline, right? Like not everyone 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:27.040 who calls this is having suicidal thoughts, But that's like 0:08:27.080 --> 0:08:31.040 it's purpose, you know. You also get asked have you 0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:34.680 taken any action to harm yourself today? And this conflates 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:38.679 self harm with suicide, which is I think a fundamental 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:43.520 misunderstanding of the ways in which people hurt themselves. This 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:46.000 study that was put together by trans Lifeline has a 0:08:46.000 --> 0:08:49.240 lot of interviews with people who have had these experiences. 0:08:50.440 --> 0:08:53.520 One participant in the study about nine eight eight said quote, 0:08:55.000 --> 0:08:57.520 of course I felt like hurting myself. Of course I 0:08:57.559 --> 0:08:59.439 want to be honest and to be able to talk 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:02.480 about those I think it would be really helpful for 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:04.840 me to have acknowledged how I was actually feeling in 0:09:04.840 --> 0:09:07.240 those moments. But I just know that if you say 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:11.319 yes to those questions about self harm, those questions aren't 0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:14.600 to have a supportive conversation. It's like those questions are 0:09:14.600 --> 0:09:17.959 to involuntarily hospitalize you or call the police on you, 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:21.360 or do something that isn't helpful and is really traumatizing 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:27.640 and harmful. Another participant wrote, it becomes about managing the 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:32.640 operator's emotions and their concerns. It also becomes about are 0:09:32.640 --> 0:09:35.000 they going to flag me up the line to their supervisor? 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:37.679 Do I have to worry about someone coming to my location? 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:40.240 Do I have to worry about the cops being called? 0:09:40.480 --> 0:09:41.960 Am I going to be able to stay in my 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:48.120 own home and keep my liberty? Also, between twenty nineteen 0:09:48.160 --> 0:09:50.600 and twenty twenty one, the police killed at least one 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:53.000 hundred and seventy eight people in the United States during 0:09:53.200 --> 0:09:56.760 wellness checks. These are not nine eight eight specific numbers. 0:09:56.760 --> 0:10:00.760 That's just the number of people killed by police in 0:10:00.840 --> 0:10:04.880 between twenty nineteen and twenty twenty one, and wellness check specifically. 0:10:05.640 --> 0:10:08.480 It's good that there is an alternative to calling the cops. 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:11.280 I'm certain that separating out nine eight eight from nine 0:10:11.280 --> 0:10:13.600 to one to one will overall reduce the number of 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:17.080 people killed by police during wellness checks. And I'm not 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:19.439 trying to say no one should ever call hotlines associated 0:10:19.440 --> 0:10:23.160 with nine eight eight. It's just it's trickier than it 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:26.000 needs to be. Unfortunately, a lot of the alternatives are 0:10:26.080 --> 0:10:30.200 underfunded and overwhelmed, and frankly, their staff is sometimes less 0:10:30.280 --> 0:10:33.559 likely to be as consistently trained. It's just that nine 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:35.920 eight eight is not so detached from the police as 0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:40.040 it presumably should be. This is a long way from 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:42.800 calling a nice BBC broadcaster who will listen to you 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:45.280 without judgment. But do you know what, it's not a 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:47.280 long way from. Actually it is a really long way from. 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:49.840 This is really a stretch. I'm just really stretching here 0:10:49.920 --> 0:10:52.679 to try and try and find a glimmer of connection 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:56.920 between the script that I'm reading these advertisers, and I 0:10:56.960 --> 0:11:00.280 really appreciate you all coming along with me on that 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:10.920 that glorious big stretch. Here's ads and Rebecca, I don't 0:11:10.920 --> 0:11:13.720 work in suicide prevention. I am not a social worker. 0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:17.040 To me, I can see the value in both evidence 0:11:17.040 --> 0:11:19.720 based attempts to reduce the number of deaths by suicide 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:23.560 and also just creating platforms so that people who are 0:11:23.600 --> 0:11:27.840 suffering can talk to people and be heard, not even 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:33.920 necessarily seen stopping them as the sole purpose, right, but 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:37.960 maybe listening to them. And I think that because I 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:40.720 think it'll reduce the number of suicides, I'm not a whatever. 0:11:40.760 --> 0:11:42.280 I'm going to trank. Keep my own opinions out of 0:11:42.280 --> 0:11:44.559 this as much as possible. Obviously I have strong opinions 0:11:44.559 --> 0:11:48.360 about the way all this interacts with police. But yeah, 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:50.760 nine eight eight seems to me like a perfect example 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:53.199 of taking a really good idea and by relying on 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:57.280 the work of really good people, doing something kind of 0:11:57.320 --> 0:12:01.080 sketchy by tying it into the government. As Lifelines report 0:12:01.320 --> 0:12:05.280 says that nine eight eight quote represents an expansion of 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:10.520 location tracking capabilities and non consensual practices in social support services, 0:12:11.000 --> 0:12:16.240 disregarding the voices of hotline users, psychiatric survivors, human rights organizations, 0:12:16.559 --> 0:12:19.720 and crisis care experts who condemned the practice of non 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:23.840 consensual intervention. So these days, if you go to San 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:27.080 Francisco's Suicide Prevention's website and go to their fact and 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:31.240 click on anonymity, they say, quote, the only times we 0:12:31.280 --> 0:12:34.880 lift confidentiality are in times of immediate physical danger, in 0:12:34.920 --> 0:12:41.160 which case we will only contact emergency services. And that's 0:12:41.240 --> 0:12:48.000 not anonymity. I don't want to say that no organization 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:50.199 should work with the government, because if there's one thing 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:53.400 that this administration has reminded us, it's that there are 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:56.160 good things that the government is the one doing. We 0:12:56.280 --> 0:13:00.840 remember this because the government is currently systematic stripping all 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:05.000 of its own good qualities away, and so in July 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:08.640 twenty twenty five, the nine eight eight Suicide and Crisis 0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:14.400 Hotline dismantled it's LGBTQ plus services. They explain this with 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:17.640 perhaps the single most cursed sentence I have ever read, 0:13:17.960 --> 0:13:19.600 and I'm so sorry I'm going to say it to 0:13:19.679 --> 0:13:24.880 you now quote the nine eight eight Suicide and Crisis 0:13:24.920 --> 0:13:30.720 Lifeline will no longer silo LGB plus Youth Services also 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:34.040 known as the Press three option, to focus on serving 0:13:34.760 --> 0:13:38.760 all help seekers, including those previously served through the Press 0:13:38.800 --> 0:13:42.760 three option. Where do I begin, Well, it will no 0:13:42.800 --> 0:13:45.120 longer silo US, as if we should be grateful that 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:47.559 we're no longer being kept away from everyone else, even 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:49.440 though obviously the purpose of that is so that we 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:52.120 can reach people who are specifically trained and or have 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:56.920 the similar experiences us. And no one literally no one 0:13:57.040 --> 0:14:03.160 good says LGB or LGB plus, the T and the 0:14:03.280 --> 0:14:07.400 Q have been purposefully removed because we literally don't exist 0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:13.679 in this government's view. Now, of course, this language doesn't 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:16.200 filter down to members of nine eight eight. The fact 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:19.520 that nine eight eight is saying this doesn't mean that 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:24.520 its members share these opinions or will act in that way. 0:14:25.560 --> 0:14:29.160 Individual lifelines continue to describe themselves as they wish, but 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:33.520 they do all have to commit to nonconsensual intervention after 0:14:33.600 --> 0:14:36.840 nine eight eight cut Queer specific care out of its services. 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:39.320 Trans Lifeline who are the people who wrote that critical 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:43.760 report of nine eight eight said quote Through our advocacy efforts, 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:46.600 we have recognized that the well meaning folks at nine 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:49.320 eight eight have made improvements to their work and become 0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:52.120 more sensitive to the needs of our community. We are 0:14:52.160 --> 0:14:54.960 deeply disappointed that they no longer have the opportunity to 0:14:55.000 --> 0:15:00.240 continue growing their understanding and service to our community. She 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:02.680 knew what nine eight eight was doing to improve themselves 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:06.400 after that report, but of course any hard work they'd 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:09.440 done was destroyed by the new administration, who, in their 0:15:09.600 --> 0:15:15.359 reverse mitas way, turn everything they touch into shit. But importantly, 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:17.680 there are lifelines that are not part of the nine 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:20.360 eight eight project that specifically do not call the police. 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:22.720 I'm going to focus on trans Lifeline, but just to 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:26.000 shout out some of the other ones, there's black Line 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:29.160 at one eight hundred, six oh four five eight four 0:15:29.120 --> 0:15:33.920 to one, which prioritizes BIPOC and LGBTQ plus folks. There's 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:38.120 the Wildflower Alliance Peer Support Line at one eight eight 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:42.440 eight four oh seven four five one five, which is 0:15:42.480 --> 0:15:45.640 a warm line for not as much crisis. There's the 0:15:45.680 --> 0:15:49.880 Fireside Project at one six two three two five zero 0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:52.920 seven three nine three, which is for people dealing with 0:15:52.960 --> 0:15:57.840 mental health during and after psychedelic experiences. There's Strong Heart's 0:15:57.920 --> 0:16:01.440 Native Helpline at one eight four four seven six y 0:16:01.480 --> 0:16:04.640 two eight four eight three, which is for Indigenous folks 0:16:04.680 --> 0:16:09.760 dealing with intimate partner or sexual violence. And there's trans Lifeline, 0:16:10.320 --> 0:16:13.400 which grew out of the Transgender Day of Remembrance. More 0:16:13.520 --> 0:16:16.600 like this, transgender remembers that she has to pivot to 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:23.680 ads and Rebecca and I feel as though I have 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:28.800 cursed myself with these ad transitions, because the trans Day 0:16:28.800 --> 0:16:31.880 of Remembrance is not about remembering ads. It is about 0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:34.520 remembering a thirty four year old black trans woman named 0:16:34.600 --> 0:16:37.520 Rita Hester and all of the other trans people who've 0:16:37.680 --> 0:16:41.000 had their lives ended by violence. Rita Hester died in 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:45.320 nineteen ninety eight. She was born in nineteen sixty three 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:49.000 in Hartford, Connecticut, and she was a girl from the jump. 0:16:49.520 --> 0:16:52.120 She knew she was Rita pretty much right away, according 0:16:52.120 --> 0:16:54.880 to her sister. Her family supported her, even if they 0:16:54.880 --> 0:16:57.720 didn't always get her pronouns right, which is an experience 0:16:57.840 --> 0:17:02.720 familiar to plenty of trans people. Rita moved to Boston 0:17:02.800 --> 0:17:05.240 in her twenties and started hanging out in the rock scene, 0:17:05.240 --> 0:17:08.919 going to drag bars, living life to the fullest. She 0:17:09.000 --> 0:17:11.480 was also a sex worker, which is left out of 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:15.400 every almost every account of her life. A shout out 0:17:15.440 --> 0:17:18.520 to Them magazine, who was actually willing to say what 0:17:18.640 --> 0:17:22.200 Rita did for work. Because violence against trans people is ignored, 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:25.480 violence against black trans people is ignored, violence against sex workers, 0:17:25.520 --> 0:17:30.400 and especially black trans sex workers is ignored. Someone could 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:33.320 not handle Rita living her life to the fullest and 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:37.320 stabbed her to death. She was dead, named and misgendered 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:40.720 an article after article after she died. Her killer was 0:17:40.800 --> 0:17:43.439 never found, though two white men were seen leaving the 0:17:43.440 --> 0:17:46.960 building that night, and her white boyfriend simply disappeared after 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:51.280 she died. No one heard from him ever. Again, the 0:17:51.320 --> 0:17:54.160 most likely thing is that she took home a white 0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:56.640 man or two from the bar and they killed her. 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:00.840 None of this, of course, none of this sort of 0:18:00.880 --> 0:18:04.040 violence is new. I don't expect to have to explain 0:18:04.119 --> 0:18:07.840 to my listeners, but trans people, especially trans women of color, 0:18:08.000 --> 0:18:10.239 especially trans women of color who are sex workers, are 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:14.680 murdered at a terrifyingly disproportionate rate. People have refused to 0:18:14.760 --> 0:18:18.680 let Rita Hester's name disappear from history. Her mother, Kathleen, 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:21.840 never stopped fighting, and a trans woman named Gwendolen Smith 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:24.959 soon put up a website called Remembering Are Dead that 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:28.680 within a year became the Transgender Day of Remembrance, which 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:34.159 is November twentieth every year. Murderers with knives aren't the 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:39.160 only folks who kill trans people. Sometimes, systemic poverty, discrimination, 0:18:39.400 --> 0:18:42.440 lack of access to medical care, and all those compounding 0:18:42.480 --> 0:18:47.639 factors work together to kill trans people through suicide. So 0:18:47.720 --> 0:18:50.720 after the Trans Day of Remembrance in twenty fourteen, some 0:18:50.800 --> 0:18:54.560 folks got together to start the trans Lifeline, a suicide 0:18:54.600 --> 0:18:59.439 hotline for trans people staffed by trans people. They started 0:18:59.480 --> 0:19:04.080 it based on three principles. One all operators must be trans. 0:19:04.280 --> 0:19:08.679 Two peer support from shared lived experiences is vital, and 0:19:08.760 --> 0:19:13.160 three they don't call emergency services without the caller requesting 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:18.000 that now to be very clear, or to be very specific, 0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:20.640 there actually are, because I was like being like, oh, 0:19:20.680 --> 0:19:24.360 these other people will call the emergency services. Trans Lifeline 0:19:24.440 --> 0:19:28.560 can also call emergency services depending There are three reasons 0:19:28.600 --> 0:19:34.680 why trans Lifeline might call someone. First is if you ask. Second, 0:19:34.840 --> 0:19:37.600 if there's a credible threat to a third party, so 0:19:37.720 --> 0:19:39.320 not like I'm going to kill myself, but I'm going 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:42.679 to kill this other guy, or as laws require, if 0:19:42.720 --> 0:19:46.000 there's proof of child abuse. They've written a lot about 0:19:46.000 --> 0:19:50.960 why they don't do non consensual intervention to quote them quote. 0:19:51.440 --> 0:19:55.399 In October twenty fifteen, trans Lifeline surveyed about eight hundred 0:19:55.440 --> 0:19:58.600 trans people across the United States about their experiences with 0:19:58.640 --> 0:20:03.560 suicide hotline use. Approximately seventy percent of the respondent specified 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:06.560 that they felt unsafe calling a hotline while in crisis. 0:20:07.359 --> 0:20:10.600 Approximately a quarter of respondents stated that they had interacted 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:14.720 with law enforcement or emergency personnel due to a crisis call. 0:20:14.920 --> 0:20:19.240 One in five had been placed in an involuntary psychiatric hold. 0:20:20.000 --> 0:20:25.520 Because lifelines don't work if people are afraid to call them. 0:20:25.880 --> 0:20:29.280 They don't work if people don't trust the people they're 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:34.439 talking to. Trans people, in particular distrust the police, but 0:20:34.680 --> 0:20:37.600 also all of the other various services that might be 0:20:37.680 --> 0:20:41.840 called because we are routinely denied care or mistreated, like 0:20:41.960 --> 0:20:46.159 just on a really really regular basis. Interacting with legal 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:50.840 frameworks is often really complicated for us because we don't 0:20:50.880 --> 0:20:53.760 know who's a bigot. Our paperwork doesn't always match our 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:57.000 names and presentations, and it's not just like, oh it 0:20:57.080 --> 0:21:01.119 hurts our feelings to be misgendered. No, they do violence 0:21:01.200 --> 0:21:06.840 to you. Sometimes they deny you basic human shit. If 0:21:06.880 --> 0:21:09.359 you're listening to the show, you probably kind of know 0:21:09.440 --> 0:21:12.280 these things. And I don't need a grandstand. But also, 0:21:12.960 --> 0:21:15.920 we are twice as likely to live below the poverty 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:20.440 line as the CIS population, and people sure don't want 0:21:20.440 --> 0:21:25.240 to pay any ambulance bills. And finally, to quote trans 0:21:25.280 --> 0:21:30.160 Lifeline again quote for many in our community, chronic suicidal 0:21:30.200 --> 0:21:33.800 ideation is a response to trauma and can be managed. 0:21:34.520 --> 0:21:38.880 So we want to talk to people who understand that, right, 0:21:38.920 --> 0:21:41.919 which includes theoretically plenty of people who are SIS who 0:21:42.000 --> 0:21:44.840 also have as a response to trauma, Like you know, 0:21:44.960 --> 0:21:47.720 certain thoughts are just like ever all that far away 0:21:47.720 --> 0:21:52.520 from them. And when we can't talk about that, I 0:21:52.520 --> 0:21:54.439 don't want to wee this actually, because this is not 0:21:54.520 --> 0:21:58.640 my experience as a transperson, but it is the experience 0:21:58.680 --> 0:22:02.320 of so many people. I love when people can't talk 0:22:02.840 --> 0:22:06.359 about the fact that those thoughts are just kind of 0:22:06.440 --> 0:22:09.600 never that far away. It makes it harder for them 0:22:09.640 --> 0:22:14.480 to like process them in functional and useful ways. And 0:22:15.760 --> 0:22:17.719 I don't know, I don't have numbers of this, but 0:22:17.800 --> 0:22:20.560 it sure seems like it puts them in more danger, 0:22:21.680 --> 0:22:26.119 you know. And so trans Lifeline they set up and 0:22:26.160 --> 0:22:29.040 they start doing their work and they're still around. They also, 0:22:29.080 --> 0:22:31.520 within a couple of years, set up a microgrant project 0:22:31.840 --> 0:22:34.480 which provides small grants for trans people to cover the 0:22:34.480 --> 0:22:37.560 cost of name and ID paperwork, which is cool as hell. 0:22:38.359 --> 0:22:41.760 It's very complicated, like whether or not it's a complicated 0:22:41.800 --> 0:22:44.840 threat analysis, but people whether they should change their name 0:22:44.840 --> 0:22:47.919 and ID. Some of it has to do with dysphoria 0:22:47.960 --> 0:22:51.760 and euphoria round gender and presentation, and some of it 0:22:51.800 --> 0:22:53.639 has to do just with safety. So some of it 0:22:53.680 --> 0:22:56.600 has to do with like, it sure would be nice 0:22:56.600 --> 0:23:01.960 if my passport looked like me, right, I don't know. Now, 0:23:01.960 --> 0:23:07.760 the trans Lifeline isn't perfect either, but the things that 0:23:07.800 --> 0:23:11.840 are messy about it are so messy to research. Oh 0:23:11.920 --> 0:23:17.440 my lord, I like researching history. That's like history happened 0:23:17.440 --> 0:23:22.560 in historical times. Ideally the number should start with a one, 0:23:23.240 --> 0:23:25.760 or there should be before the twenty first century. That's 0:23:25.760 --> 0:23:28.720 what I like. Current events are messier, they have more 0:23:28.760 --> 0:23:33.040 moving parts, more raw data is usually available. But I'm 0:23:33.040 --> 0:23:35.520 not a historian. I'm a pop historian. I don't do 0:23:35.800 --> 0:23:39.199 the more than I have to the raw processing of 0:23:39.320 --> 0:23:42.359 stuff to find out what the story is. If you 0:23:42.480 --> 0:23:45.960 research trans Lifeline like I spent so much of this 0:23:46.040 --> 0:23:48.520 week trying to do, you're going to see a lot 0:23:48.560 --> 0:23:51.440 of people talking shit about it on the internet. Some 0:23:51.520 --> 0:23:56.080 of this stuff is undoubtedly true. The two founders of 0:23:56.119 --> 0:23:59.680 the trans Lifeline I'm not naming because I just their 0:23:59.760 --> 0:24:02.480